Having been apart of the design community since we launched aspexx, it’s been great to see the regular events grow and become a place of learning and networking.
The weekend of the 15th & 16th Feb we were a part of DDX. DDX is a global conference, think-tank and a community of driven designers, strategists, entrepreneurs, venture-builders and product leaders. This community reaches across some of the best cities in the world including Dubai, Munich, New York and San Diego.
We are super proud of this partnership for the second year running. For us, one of the values we put at the heart of what we do is community building. Bringing together the brightest minds in the design and digital space has been a focus of ours since we launched aspexx and will continue to do so as we grow as a business.
Over the course of the weekend we had over 300 attendees from all over the world which was amazing to see. Not only that, having international brands there and some of the brightest minds from the likes of Electronic Arts and Meta was incredible. For us it was a chance to not only meet potential new clients but also to meet candidates face to face that have made the effort to fly in for the conference.
There were lots of take aways and highlights but I’d like to mention a few things that I really enjoyed.
Jay & Warren’s chat with Guy Hatton. This was so insightful about AI and the impact of it’ll have on design in the future. The good news is that AI won’t replace humans anytime soon. However, it will change the process in which designers, well, design. Don’t become lazy by it, embrace the change and integrate AI into your day to day to solve bigger and more complex problems. Don’t get left behind, start using it, big or small tasks, it’ll pay dividends in years to come.
Design will always keep evolving and there will be roles that designers are in now, that won’t be around in 10 years, but there will also be roles that exist that don’t exist now.
The process of design will inevitably change.
Check out the “Beyond the Interface” podcast by Jay Tulloch and Warren Nugent.
Another stand out was Brenton’s talk on Predictability vs Creativity: Bridging Strategy and Design for Unmatched Value. It definitely changed my views on what product discovery or event product innovation focus should be. It’s always refreshing to hear insights and gain an understanding of where our industry is heading or possibly should head.
What stood out to me the most was the quote “the best practices lead to average results” and has got me thinking on a more personal level am I just following the crowd or am I differentiating myself enough to make a difference in my industry of talent consultancy. Are we just contributing to the noise or will people actually miss us if we disappeared. Are we making an impact and difference?
The essence of the talk called out about how innovation is always about pushing forward , to adopt the latest tools and chasing ideas in this past paced word we live in.
During talk Brenton introduced his RETRACE framework – which offers a refreshing alternative that by looking back at what may be wrong with the industry and the origins of best practices so we can uncover insights that lead to genuine innovation.
The framework introduced presented an idea that was counterintuitive , that we should first step back and analyse the roots of our existing problems rather before pushing forward.
By retracing the history of our challenge and incorporating behaviour driven experiments we can move away from optimising and improving what’s in front of us and create a space for truly differentiated solutions with messaging and and a value proposition that truly gets customers emotionally attached rather then serving just a functional need that anyone could replicate.
Looking back on the DDX conference this year, we were inspired by the vibrant exchange of ideas and we are committed to fostering innovation and collaboration with our clients, embracing change, like AI, to shape a meaningful and impactful future together.
Looking forward to 2026!